


Resurrection

by flawedamythyst



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-14
Updated: 2012-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-31 03:46:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/339541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawedamythyst/pseuds/flawedamythyst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coming home isn't as easy as Sherlock thought it was going to be.</p>
<p>Betaed by Veronamay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Resurrection

John moved differently now.

There was a carefulness to him, one that was more usually seen in old people who knew just how fragile their bones were and how easily they'd shatter in a fall. It wasn't the same as the way he'd moved when Sherlock had first met him, all constrained pain and stiff joints; it was far more subtle than that. John climbed the stairs up to their flat as if his whole body was on the verge of crumbling away.

Their flat – it wasn't their flat any more. It was John's flat. Sherlock's things had disappeared at some stage in the last three years, almost certainly put into storage by Mycroft, but there was a chance they had been given away, maybe even thrown out – he hadn't liked to ask John, not yet. He'd found himself reacting in unexpected ways to John's fragility; trying to protect him from anything that might hurt him further, even going so far as to avoid saying or doing things he wouldn't have even thought twice about before.

There hadn't been any objections raised about Sherlock moving back in to Baker Street. Mrs. Hudson had assumed it from the first moment she'd been able to move beyond 'you're not dead', and John hadn't argued. He hadn't said much of anything, really, beyond his initial reaction. Sherlock wasn't sure what to make of that – John had always been very happy to speak his mind before, often at too much length. Sherlock hadn't realised he'd miss that. He hadn't realised how much he'd miss everything about John.

John's first reaction had been shock. That seemed fairly normal, in Sherlock's growing experience – no one could react to seeing someone they were convinced was dead without some element of shock. After that had come blinding realisation tinged with joy, but that hadn't lasted very long at all before it had morphed into rage, which had been a shame. Another thing that Sherlock had missed - watching realisation dawn across John's face.

Sherlock had expected the rage that followed, and had even anticipated some of the violence, although John had stopped himself from following through on the punch he so clearly wanted to send into Sherlock's face. What he hadn't expected was how quickly it would fade into a sort of numb acceptance. John's beautifully mobile face had shut down into a blank mask, and that had been that. His reaction had ended without getting to the stage Sherlock had barely let himself think about, the one of overwhelming relief and pleasure at getting Sherlock back. Part of him had been hoping for some sort of physical affection, although he'd tried to kill it off before the thought could take over his mind.

He'd dragged John off with him after Sebastian Moran, hoping to rekindle some of the spirit that he'd spent three long years missing, but while John had followed without complaint, he hadn't really shown any enthusiasm either. Sherlock had made sure that things would culminate in a bit of a fight – violence always got John's blood pumping – but rather than throw himself into the fray, John stayed back, waited his chance, and then took Moran out with a single blow to the head from his gun. Efficient, yes, but not nearly as much fun as a proper brawl.

“Your death shattered him, you know,” Lestrade said to Sherlock later, after he'd had his own bout of rage and calmed down enough to take a statement. Sherlock scoffed at the idea, but two weeks later, he was beginning to think that Lestrade had been more correct than he wanted to admit. This quiet, stoic man was not the same John Watson he had left behind.

Sherlock wasn't stupid enough to think he was the same person either. Too long spent switching between hunting and running without ever getting a respite or even seeing a friendly face had left him a little twitchy. He couldn't even sleep in his own bed now; instead he found himself lying awake for hours, staring at the ceiling and flinching at every tiny noise that the building made. He went out to the sitting room to try and do something more than just pointlessly lying, and ended up drifting off on the sofa. Apparently his body had decided that beds were dangerous, but a sofa that was too short for him and oddly stiff, as if it hadn't been used for three years, was fine. He wasn't sure how to interpret that information.

The first time he did it, he woke up with a start to find John sunk into his chair, still in his pyjamas and staring at Sherlock. His posture was such that Sherlock could tell he'd been there for a while, but the thing that made cold fingers clutch at Sherlock's chest was the utterly blank look on John's face. He couldn't remember ever being so unable to read any kind of emotion from John – one of the best things about him had always been how open and communicative he was.

“John?” he asked, the remnants of sleep roughening his voice.

John blinked as if coming out of a daze. “Tea,” he said, standing up. “Do you want some?” His face didn't change. Sherlock felt sickness creep into his stomach as he answered in the affirmative and sat up. He had done this. He had taken something away from John by dying and it seemed that just coming home to him was not enough to return it. How was he going to fix this?

****

He started with what he knew.

“Lestrade has a case,” he said, buttoning up his coat. “Are you coming?” Somehow he couldn't quite make it a demand rather than a question.

John looked up from the paper he was reading. Sherlock could see him thinking it over and there was a pause of what seemed an eternity as he contemplated it, before he shook his head. “Sorry. Got an early start tomorrow.”

Sherlock pushed on. “I might need you. It could be dangerous.” Two phrases that had never failed to work before.

John gave him a strange, dark smile. “I'm sure you'll cope,” he said, and looked back down at his paper.

Sherlock stayed standing in the doorway for another minute but John didn't look up, and eventually Sherlock was forced to leave without him. When he got to the crime scene, Lestrade took one look at the space by his side and raised an eyebrow. 

“I told you,” he said.

Sherlock scowled. “Shut up,” he said. “It'll just take some time, that's all.”

Time made no difference. John refused every one of Sherlock's invites to join him on a case, went upstairs to his room whenever Sherlock had a client visiting, and generally treated Sherlock's work as if it was nothing to do with him, other than what his flatmate did to pay his half of the rent.

Sherlock took to telling him every detail of his cases, pacing up and down their sitting room and waving his arms as he described crime scenes, witnesses and whatever evidence he hadn't been able to steal from the police. John sat mutely through it all, but Sherlock told himself that he was laying the groundwork, reminding John how much he'd enjoyed watching Sherlock unravel a problem so that one day, he would want to come along and see it.

About a month after Sherlock's dramatic return, John finally cut in to one of Sherlock's monologues, but it wasn't to express any interest in joining him next time. “Sherlock, I know it helps you to think out loud, but do you think you could do it in your room? I want to watch Top Gear.”

Sherlock stopped mid-pace to stare at him. John looked back with a calm, even expression.

_I've lost all of him,_ flashed across Sherlock's mind. 

John had been his blogger, his assistant and his friend but he was none of those things now. He hadn't updated his blog since the entry immediately after Sherlock's death three years ago, and he clearly had no interest in the work now. As for friendship: well, Sherlock might not know much about it, but he knew what it wasn't. This polite orbit around Sherlock that John was doing now was definitely not it. He kept their conversations to mundane, necessary things and said nothing the rest of the rest of the time. He refused any invitation to do anything outside of the flat with Sherlock and, perhaps most tellingly of all, when he looked at Sherlock, there was nothing but the polite veneer that he might show a stranger. Whatever he was really thinking or feeling, he wasn't letting Sherlock in on any of it.

It was a lot harder than Sherlock would have expected, to be able to see and talk to John every day and yet not have any access to who he really was. While he'd been away, all he'd wanted was to be back home with John while he watched television, or pottered around the kitchen making tea, or any of a hundred of little activities that he had missed far more than was logical. He had those things now, in abundance, but without John meeting Sherlock's eyes as he did them, without his tiny smiles or his little comments, they just didn't have the same value. Sherlock still found himself missing John, even when they'd spent hours together in the same room.

Sherlock turned and went into his room without replying to John. Clearly, this strategy wasn't working. He needed to reassess.

****

Three days later, Sherlock tried to gauge whether or not he should attempt his new plan now, or wait until a better opportunity while he watched John eat breakfast and gaze out of the window at the massing clouds with a faint frown.

“It will rain for roughly three hours, but not until after lunch,” he said in reply to the question that was so obvious in John's eyes.

John looked over at him and gave a half-laugh that sounded completely humourless. “I forgot how you could read minds.”

It was not the most promising start, but Sherlock had a suspicion that if he didn't try this now, he would keep putting it off forever. There was a reason he had tried the other strategy first – actually talking about things, getting out their emotions and looking them over, was bound to get messy in the way Sherlock never quite knew how to deal with.

_It's this, or nothing but humourless laughs and polite smiles from now on,_ he told himself, and it was enough to force the next sentence out of him.

“On the contrary, I find your mind exceedingly opaque more often than I'd care for,” he said. John's eyebrows raised, and wariness crept into the set of his shoulders. Sherlock ignored it and soldiered on. “John, I hope you know that I did not deceive you lightly. There was no other choice, no other way to bring Moriarty's organisation down. I looked at the problem from every possible angle.”

John stood up. “I should get the shopping before the rain starts,” he said, and had left the flat before Sherlock could draw in breath to respond. 

Sherlock stared after him, then surrendered to the urge to put his head in his hands. For the first time he wondered if fixing this was beyond him, and shuddered at the idea. How much longer could this go on? How long would it take before John put physical distance between them as well as emotional? He was going to end up alone again. He'd spent three years alone, and made it through because he'd known one day he'd get to come home to John. What would it be like to have no prospect of John in his future? Even the contemplation of it was horrific. 

“Coo-eee,” said Mrs. Hudson, knocking on the door frame as she swept in without waiting for a reply. “I saw John go out – he's off early this morning, isn't he? Oh dear, and he hasn't finished his breakfast.” 

She picked up the plate with John's half-eaten toast on it and Sherlock stared at it morosely.

“Mrs. Hudson,” he said. “How do you explain something to someone who doesn't want to listen?”

She stopped where she was, looking at him with an expression he couldn't bear to look at. “Oh, Sherlock,” she said sadly. “He'll come around. You just have to give him time.”

Sherlock shook his head. “He's had time. It's not- nothing's changing.” He let his head hang down, and added in a quiet voice aimed at the carpet, “I'm not sure he even wants me here.”

Mrs. Hudson stepped closer to put her hand on his shoulder. “If he didn't, he would have said,” she said. “Never been afraid of speaking his mind, has he?”

That much was true.

“Sherlock, love, I know it's hard, but it's hard for him too. He was so hurt, for so long, and just as he was getting past it, you turned up again.”

“Like a bad penny,” muttered Sherlock.

“Like a good luck charm,” corrected Mrs. Hudson, finally moving away to take John's plate through to the kitchen. “He's just a bit overwhelmed, poor dear.”

The idea of John – John Watson, who both shot criminals and stopped their bleeding afterwards, all while giving Sherlock a furious dressing down over what he perceived as recklessness – being overwhelmed was ridiculous. But, then, it seemed that he wasn't that John any more, and maybe the resurrection of a dead best friend was enough to overwhelm anyone.

****

Sherlock retreated for his bedroom for the rest of the day, not even coming out when he heard John's return from the shop as he usually would have. If John was feeling overwhelmed, maybe it would be better if Sherlock kept out of his way for a bit. He'd been spending as much time in the same room as John as possible, just because he could now, but maybe that had only been making things worse.

The day passed slowly. He could occasionally hear John moving about in the sitting room, and when John made lunch, the sounds filtered through the wall clearly enough for Sherlock to be able to picture his actions. There was a time when John would have insisted that Sherlock emerge and eat something with him, but today he didn't even tap on the door and offer Sherlock tea when the kettle boiled.

Sherlock spent the day pretending he was going through the boxes of his things that Mycroft had conjured out of nowhere last week, putting his room back to how it should be, but most of his brain was fixated on turning over the problem of John. By the time night came, he still had no answers. How could something that should be so simple prove to be so impossible to solve? All he wanted was to get their friendship back – people, ordinary people, managed friendships all the time. Why was this so hard?

John went to bed early and Sherlock took the chance to creep out to find some food before retreating to his room again. He was strongly tempted to play his violin – another thing he had missed while away – but if John was trying to sleep that would only irritate him further.

Instead, he lay on his bed, staring up at the ceiling, and tried to console himself that at least no one was actively trying to kill him anymore. Eventually, he drifted off to sleep.

He woke with a start when his door creaked open, already fumbling for the knife under his pillow that wasn't there, why wasn't it there? He needed it, they'd found him, they were coming to kill him, where was his knife?

He sat up, throwing on the light so that he could at least face his attacker, and it was John, standing in the doorway and blinking against the sudden flood of light.

_Of course, idiot, you're home and safe. No need for a knife._ His heart was still pounding though, adrenalin rushing through him from the fight-or-flight impulse that had taken over. He took a long, deep breath, trying to regain control. Ridiculous to let himself get swept up in a reaction like that without any data that he was really in danger.

“John,” he said, keeping his voice steady despite how shaken he felt.

“Sorry,” said John. “I was just-” There was an expression on his face as he gazed at Sherlock, possibly the first real one that Sherlock had seen in weeks, although it didn't make him feel any better. It was a strange, lost look, layered over an intense hunger as he stared at Sherlock, and Sherlock felt his stomach sink. How much must he have hurt John to warrant such a look?

“It's fine,” he said, because he never wanted John to feel unwelcome in his room. “Come in.”

John's eyes met Sherlock's and his mouth compressed into a line. He shook his head. “It's- Sorry,” he said again, then turned and vanished.

Sherlock spent a long time staring at the empty doorway, trying to parse what that had been about. What had John been looking for when he'd come down here? He would have known, before – he'd known almost everything about John and his responses, all the data neatly catalogued and instantly accessible. This new John was too different for any of that information to be relevant now.

Collecting a new set of data for this version of John was far more difficult than it had been the first time, when John's thoughts and feelings had been laid out for Sherlock to read like a particularly simple book, although somehow still managing to be compelling. Well, if John wasn't going to make this easy on him, he would just have to start pushing in order to get data.

He pushed his duvet aside and stood up. Pushing might end with an angry John, but at least that would be some sort of response, and angry people often let things slip, things that Sherlock might be able to make use of. He had to get John – his John – back, whatever it took.

He made no attempt to walk quietly as he climbed the stairs to John's room. When he opened the bedroom door, John was sat up with his light on, looking at him.

“Go away, Sherlock,” he said, sounding tired.

Sherlock stopped in the doorway, for some reason unwilling to go in without an invite, although that would never usually bother him. Or wouldn't bother him with anyone else but John, he mentally amended. John was the exception to so many things. 

“Is that what you want?” he asked. “For me to go away from Baker Street completely?”

“No!” said John quickly, involuntarily. Something inside of Sherlock relaxed. John took in a long breath, and released it even slower. Sherlock waited him out, certain something more was coming and hoping that whatever it was wouldn't be painful. 

“If you weren't here,” said John, looking down at his duvet to avoid Sherlock's eyes, “I'd find it extremely difficult to remember that you're not actually dead.”

Ah. Sherlock turned that over and fitted it to John's behaviour that evening. Sherlock had kept away from him, stayed mainly silent in his room, and John had started to doubt himself and had to come down and check. That showed that he at least still cared about Sherlock's existence, but it didn't answer everything.

“And yet, you would prefer not to spend time with me, either on cases or doing other things.” It hurt to say it out loud, and it hurt more when John didn't deny it. 

“Look, it's- you may not be dead,” he said, and Sherlock watched the way his hand curled up into a fist rather than watching his face and seeing how painfully honest he was being, “but it feels as if that bit of you is. I thought, before, I thought you liked me – cared about me, in a sideways Sherlock manner, but still. I thought I mattered to you.”

“You do-” started Sherlock, but John talked over him.

“Someone who cared wouldn't have done that to me. A friend wouldn't have left me to grieve for three years. I can't go back to going through the motions of friendship now, after that.”

There was the insight into John's feelings that Sherlock had been looking for, but somehow it only served to make him feel worse. “It's not just going through the motions, John,” he said. “I do- I do care.” It was hard to get those words out, but harder still to see John's sceptical response. “It was the only way. Moriarty's men-”

“Yes,” said John, interrupting again. “I know all that. Logically, I know that if there had been any other way, you would have found it. Or Mycroft would have.” Sherlock found himself automatically scowling at the suggestion that Mycroft could have seen something Sherlock wouldn't have, but wiped the expression off his face in case John thought it was aimed at him. “It's just hard to convince my heart of that.” John gave an unamused half-laugh and shook his head before looking up at Sherlock. “I don't suppose you have any idea what that's like.”

Sherlock remained silent for a moment, looking for a response to that accusation. He really couldn't say he had ever found it difficult to let his emotional responses be overruled by his mind, but he had experienced something that might be similar. “No, I don't,” he said. “I do, however, know what it is for my heart to know something that it is unable to communicate to my brain.” That part of him had known as soon as he'd had the idea to fake his death that it was a bad plan, after all, although he hadn't been able to explain why it felt that. Now he could see it all too clearly.

“I thought you didn't have a heart,” said John, and Sherlock could have done without ever hearing those words repeated back to him.

“You, of all people, should know that's not true,” he said. He had been right about how difficult it would be to actually talk through their emotions – he would have quite easily gone without ever having to fit words to these concepts. He couldn't have done without John knowing them though, not if saying them was what it took to break down some of his barriers.

John twisted his mouth into a wry half-smile, but didn't respond. His eyes dipped to the carpet, and Sherlock could almost see the cogwheels turning, synthesising the information. Despite knowing that it would be better to just let John work that through, he couldn't seem to stop his mouth opening and further defence of his actions coming out.

“I knew it was a bad thing to do to you, but Moriarty's people were starting to threaten both of us in ways I couldn't protect us from.”

“Yes,” said John. “I know. I told you, I understand that.” He looked up at Sherlock, and the dark look in his eyes was enough to stop Sherlock's breathing. “I can't help it if it still feels like something died that day, Sherlock.”

Sherlock had no response to that. He stood uselessly in the doorway as John let out a sigh and lay back down. “I need some sleep. I've got work tomorrow. Good night, Sherlock.”

Sherlock left without saying anything more and heard the light click out before he was halfway down the stairs. Had he killed their friendship with his actions? It seemed ridiculous that something that had felt so solid could be destroyed like that. He had factored in damage to John's trust in him into the pros and cons of his plan, but he had been sure that they could have worked together to repair it. If it was dead, though-

_I came back from the dead_ , he reminded himself as he flopped down on the sofa rather than go back to his room. _If I did, then so can this._

****

He started to do everything he could to demonstrate to John that he did, in fact, care and that nothing had died on his side of the equation. It involved rather more tea-making and washing up than he was used to, and he even found himself in the supermarket once or twice, trying to remember which kind of biscuits John preferred.

John responded to all his overtures with a polite smile and a thank you, but Sherlock still couldn't seem to get past the barriers he'd put up. How was he meant to rebuild anything if John didn't give him a chance?

He was playing the violin while John read the paper, looking out over Baker Street and wondering how a scene they had engaged in a hundred times as friends could feel so different now that the atmosphere had changed, when the text from Lestrade arrived.

_Two bodies found in Southfields, both missing thumbs. Fancy a look?_

“Lestrade has a case for me,” he said, putting his violin away. John made an acknowledging hum in the back of his throat. Sherlock snapped closed the catches of his violin case, and looked at him. “Want to come?” he asked.

John let out a sigh and looked at him with sad eyes. “Sherlock, I thought we'd been over this.”

“John,” said Sherlock, trying to put all his frustration at the current state of affairs and his desire to change them into that one word. “If something is dead, don't you think we should at least attempt to resuscitate it?”

John's mouth compressed into a line and he looked away.

“You are a doctor, after all,” pressed Sherlock.

John let out a very long sigh at that, closing his eyes briefly, then finally put his paper down. “Fine,” he said. Sherlock was unable to restrain his grin of pleasure, even when John stood up with even more care than he usually did, as if he'd been beaten already, or was going to his own execution.

It was a start. The tiniest of starts, but Sherlock knew himself and he knew John, and he knew how they worked together. The tiniest of starts was all he needed.

****

John was silent in the taxi on the way to the crime scene, staring out of his window as London passed them by. Sherlock watched his reflection in his own window, trying to read some hint of his thoughts on his blank face and failing.

He wanted to ask if John remembered the very first time they'd gone to a crime scene together, how Sherlock had laid out a chain of deductions for him and John had told him he was amazing. How seamlessly they had worked together. He didn't want to risk changing John's mind about coming along, though, and he'd never been particularly good at gauging what was going to upset John, so he kept his mouth shut.

When they got to the scene, Lestrade did a very bad job of hiding his surprise at seeing John.

“Hello,” he said. “Haven't seen you at one of these in a while.”

“No,” agreed John. “I've been busy with my real job.”

Sherlock gritted his teeth. He wanted to protest that this should be John's real job – his other one bored him, anyone could see that - but he was meant to be avoiding antagonising him. “Where are the bodies?” he asked instead.

“This way,” said Lestrade.

The bodies had been dumped in a car park, up against a fence. They'd obviously not been killed there, and from the position of the bodies, Sherlock suspected they had simply been rolled out of the boot of a car and left as they'd fallen. He crouched down to take a closer look, and realised that John was staying back as if he was just a bystander.

“Care to give me a medical opinion, Doctor?” he asked. Such a familiar phrase still, even if it did feel a bit rusty.

John didn't move. “You almost certainly already know anything I could tell you,” he said.

Sherlock stared at him. That was true, of course, but it had always been true. They'd both always known that John's role as medical examiner was largely to double-check Sherlock's conclusions, and to make John feel as if he wasn't wasting his medical knowledge. Before, that hadn't mattered. Sherlock added it to the list of things that John cared about now that he hadn't then.

“Nevertheless,” he said after a moment, thinking back to that first case again. “Help me prove a point.”

John didn't move immediately, and for a moment Sherlock thought he was going to refuse, then he let out a long sigh and moved slowly forward, crouching down with care. “I'm too old for this,” he muttered as one of his knees creaked.

Lestrade let out a snort. “Aren't we all?” he asked.

“No,” said Sherlock. He looked at John, who stared impassively back.

“What do you want me to look at?” he asked.

“Their thumbs,” said Sherlock, hoping that he wouldn't be forced to go this slowly through every part of the case. He'd already got almost everything he needed from the scene and was ready to rush off to the next thing, but there was no point in that if John wasn't going to follow. He had to get him interested. “Or, rather, their lack of thumbs.”

John looked down at the corpse in front of him. It was a young woman, dressed fashionably but looking worn and bedraggled. Her hair clearly hadn't been washed in several days, and the scent of old sweat was far stronger on her than that of her perfume. The man with her was in a similar state, although his hands had been washed recently, at some point before his left thumb had been cut off. They had been held for at least two days, then murdered and dumped.

John bent and looked at where the woman's right thumb had been. “Cut off at least a day ago, while she was still alive. In one go, though getting through the bone took a bit of sawing. Probably with a small knife. A pocket-knife or something similar.”

“Right,” said Sherlock. “And the man?”

John let out an irritated huff and looked over at the man's hand without moving to get closer. “Same sort of blade,” he said. “Done after he was dead, though.”

Sherlock beamed. “Exactly!” he said.

John gave him a dark look. “What is the point of me being here, Sherlock?”

Sherlock didn't know how to answer that without taking rather a long time and delving into subjects that he was uncomfortable discussing with an audience, so he acted as if it had been rhetorical, and turned to Lestrade. “What can you tell us about them?”

“Julia Lofton and Tom Klein,” started Lestrade, reciting the details from memory. Sherlock had always liked that about working with him – no fiddling about with a notebook, just all the facts laid out for him. “Engaged to be married – the wedding was due to be next month. They live in Barnes. He worked for the Treasury as some sort of mid-level civil servant; she was in electronic systems security at a bank. Pretty high up, from what I can gather. When she was reported missing, her boss was worried that it was part of a plot to breach their security and get access to their electronic money transfers.”

“They were tortured for IT information?” asked John. Finally, a sign of real interest in the case.

“Well, if you set up the right program, you can shave off a penny or two from every transfer that goes through,” said Lestrade. “That adds up very quickly.”

“So, we're looking for hackers?” asked John.

As much as Sherlock wanted to encourage him, he couldn't let that pass. “No,” he said. “Of course we're not – think! They were obviously after him, not her.”

John looked down at the bodies with a puzzled frown, but left it to Lestrade to ask, “How do you figure that?”

“John's already pointed out the key detail,” said Sherlock. “Her thumb was cut off yesterday, while they were both still alive. If you have someone you want something from, and someone they love, which do you threaten first?”

“The person they love,” said Lestrade. “They cut her thumb off to get him to do something.”

“You can persuade someone to do almost anything if you threaten the person they care most about,” said Sherlock.

John twitched, then stood up quickly, as if trying to put some distance between himself and the bodies. Sherlock hesitated, wondering if he should comment on what they were both thinking, but the look on John's face made him think that would be unwelcome.

“He gave in,” he said instead, “or she'd have been tortured further, and afterwards they were both killed. The criminals didn't need them anymore. They cut his thumb off for some reason – possibly to hide some evidence, possibly just to make them matching, and dumped them here.” He looked at the bodies again, then stood up. “He works for the treasury,” he said. “Find out precisely what he does there. I expect it'll be obvious what they wanted from him.”

Lestrade glanced over at a police officer, who nodded and disappeared. “You've already guessed what it is,” he said.

Sherlock gave him a hard look. “I never guess,” he said.

“Yeah, you do,” said John. “You just dress it up and call it something else.”

The words should have been teasing, but they came out in such a flat tone that even Lestrade gave John a worried look.

“Fine, then,” conceded Sherlock. “There's a new fifty pound note out next month. The best time to circulate forgeries is when there's a new design, one that people don't know well enough to spot mistakes on. I imagine you'll find that Tom Klein had access to the new design.”

Lestrade made a face. “If you're right, it's going to be tricky to catch them. Professional counterfeiters won't have left us much.”

Sherlock stood up and looked around the car park. “No,” he agreed. “Impossible to tell what kind of vehicle brought them here, the place they held them will be well-hidden and probably scrubbed of evidence by now, and the criminals were almost certainly strangers to both victims. We'll have to hope they made a mistake when they snatched them.”

“Inspector,” said another of the police officers. Almost all the old faces had disappeared while Sherlock had been away, and he hadn't bothered to learn any of the new names. “We've found a witness.”

****

Lewis Matthews was a gangly seventeen-year-old who was clearly over-excited by the whole thing. He was in the front garden of his house, which overlooked the car park, talking excitedly with a police officer who looked as if she wanted nothing more than to get away from him.

Sherlock let Lestrade go up to him first, holding back from his usual stride so that John wouldn't get left behind. His back had straightened as the case had begun to unravel, but he still looked tense and strained, and Sherlock couldn't work out how to get everything to snap back into place, back to how it was meant to be.

“I was at my computer last night when I saw them through the window,” Lewis was telling Lestrade as Sherlock and John got close enough to hear. “I could see they were dumping something, and I thought it was some sort of rubbish. Illegal dumping really pisses my Dad off, so I wrote down their number plate in case he wanted to report them.”

“How many of them were there?” asked Lestrade. “Did you see what they looked like?”

“There were two of them,” said Lewis. “They were men, but it was dark, and the light's broken in that corner of the car park. I couldn't even see the number plate until they were driving away.”

“They knew the light was broken,” said Sherlock. “They were counting on it.”

Lewis looked at him as he spoke, and his eyes widened. “Oh!” he said. “You're Sherlock Holmes!”

Sherlock scowled. Being recognised never ended well. “Well spotted,” he said. 

“I am such a massive fan,” said Lewis, and Sherlock's scowl deepened. That was the very worst reaction – even being told he was a fake and a fraud and should be ashamed of himself was better than running into a fan. “Wait,” said Lewis. “Just...wait.” He turned around and disappeared back into his house.

Lestrade laughed. “Ten to one he comes back with a deerstalker.”

Sherlock gritted his teeth and glanced at John, expecting some mockery from him as well. He was staring after where Lewis had disappeared with his stance firmly held to attention and Sherlock had to look away again. He wondered when he would get used to glancing at John expecting one reaction, and getting quite another instead.

Lewis did come back with a deerstalker. Sherlock glared at it, wondering just how many pointless cases he'd have to work for Mycroft in exchange for getting the things banned from the country entirely.

“My Dad got it for me after you solved The Aluminium Crutch,” he said. “I was only a kid then, but I thought you were brilliant. Will you sign it for me?”

“Of course he will,” said Lestrade, before Sherlock could tell Lewis exactly what he thought of that idea. “After all, you're helping us with the case.” He gave Sherlock a meaningful look, and Sherlock returned it with a look that said exactly what he thought of him.

He took the pen and hat from Lewis and scrawled his name across it, making sure to keep it sloppy enough to be almost illegible.

“Wow, thanks,” said Lewis, taking it back as if it was a sacred relic. “You've no idea what this means to me. I was so upset when you died – it's brilliant that you're alive.”

John made an involuntary, tense noise, and Sherlock turned to look at him again. He was clenching his teeth together so tightly that his jaw must hurt, and Sherlock immediately began running through the last few minutes to work out what had upset him so much. There was no point at all in this case if it was only going to make things with John worse.

“John Watson!” recognised Lewis. “Oh, wow, this just gets better and better! I love your blog so much – I must have read every entry hundreds of times. I kept checking it for ages to see if you'd posted more. I was hoping you'd do some of the cases you mentioned but never wrote about.” He paused, apparently not noticing that everything about John's stance and expression radiated _shut up and go away_. “I suppose it would have been weird, though, writing about him as if he was dead when you knew he wasn't.”

There was a sickening silence, during which John's glare transferred to Sherlock for a split-second before he tore it away.

“John,” said Sherlock, but he didn't know what to follow that with, not when John looked a hair's breadth away from shaking apart with repressed emotion.

“Ah, if we could just get back to these men you saw,” said Lestrade. “Did you hear any of them say anything?”

A part of Sherlock that didn't usually get a say in matters desperately wanted to reach out and touch John, as if his touch could somehow make this all better. A larger part of him was worried that doing so would tip John over whatever razor's edge he was clearly balancing on.

“Oh, no, not that I could hear,” said Lewis. “Sorry, just – could I get your autograph as well, Doctor Watson? And then I'll stop being a fan and start being a witness again.” He held out the hat to John, who looked at it as if it was a dead animal.

“No,” he said, through gritted teeth. “No, I'm not signing it.” He gestured at Sherlock. “You've got the genius's autograph, after all. I'm just the bloke he made a fool of in front of the entire nation. No one wants an idiot's signature.”

“John, you're not-” started Sherlock, and John turned on him.

“You can shut up,” he hissed, stabbing a finger at him. “You've done more than enough already, don't you think?”

The amount of rage in his eyes was frightening. Sherlock wondered if it had been there all along, buried under all John's careful politeness. “I didn't-” he said, and reached out for John, unable to stop himself.

John flinched away from him, then swung at him, catching him right across the face with a powerful fist. Sherlock let it come at him without trying to block or duck it. Finally, a proper John-like reaction. The pain blossomed across his face, perfect and real and so much easier to deal with then the cold hurt that stabbed him every time John looked through him.

“Whoa!” said Lestrade, stepping forward to block any further attack, but there was no need. John didn't swing again, he just let out a long, ragged breath, then turned on his heel and strode away.

“John,” said Sherlock and started after him, but Lestrade caught his sleeve.

“Leave him,” he said. “Give him some time.”

Sherlock glared at him. “I have done so, and it has got me nowhere.” He shook off Lestrade's arm and set off after John, hoping that this was finally going to be his chance to get through to him. That would be worth any number of punches.

“Did John not know that Sherlock wasn't dead?” he heard Lewis ask behind him. “Wow, awkward.”

John was heading for the main road, where he doubtless intended to get a taxi home. No, not a taxi, not these days. He'd be going to the nearest tube station. Sherlock caught up with him before he got there.

“John, wait,” he said.

“Piss off, Sherlock,” said John, keeping his head down as he kept walking.

“You can punch me again, if you want,” offered Sherlock.

John snorted. “Don't think I wouldn't,” he said. “In this mood, I might do anything. Just leave me alone.”

There was a pleading note in his voice that Sherlock didn't want to ignore, but he forced himself to anyway. “I'm not letting you disappear again,” he said. “John, you should be angry at me. I was expecting you to hit me when I first came back, you know.”

John was silent for a moment. He was still walking, but his footsteps had slowed to a more normal pace. “I wanted to,” he said. “I really did. I thought I wouldn't stop with just a punch, though.”

_I had bad days_ , remembered Sherlock. When John lost his temper, he went all out. “So you shut it all down instead?” he asked. “Even I know that's not emotionally healthy.”

“It's not just that,” said John. “It's-” He stopped with a shake of his head. “I don't want to talk about it.”

Sherlock felt frustration rise up in his chest. “You have made that abundantly obvious,” he said. “However, that policy has so far got us to the point where you punch me because of a deerstalker. I think perhaps it's time for a new policy.”

John snorted. “Not the first time I've punched someone because of a deerstalker,” he said. “I seem to be making a habit of it.”

“What?” asked Sherlock.

“About a month after you- after you didn't die,” said John, “I walked past one of those tourist tat stalls, and they had deerstalkers on there. I stopped to look, because I couldn't believe they'd really try to cash in on something like that, and the man asked me if I wanted a 'Genuine Sherlock Holmes Deerstalker', so that I could pretend to be a fake detective. I reacted badly.”

“Ah,” said Sherlock, filing that information away and thinking, not for the first time, that John's response to his supposed death had been more severe than he had expected.

They'd reached the entrance to the tube, and John paused. “Go back and solve your murders, Sherlock. I just want to go home.”

Sherlock realised that he had completely forgotten all about the murders. Getting an emotional reaction from John had completely supplanted them in terms of importance. How completely unprecedented. “Lestrade can manage it,” he said. “He has a witness now, after all. I'll come with you, and you can tell me who else you've punched recently.”

John stared at him. “What?” he asked, then shook his head. “No. No, Sherlock, you don't get to do this. I'm not in the mood. Go away and leave me alone, unless you really do want to get hit again.”

“I've already said that would be fine,” said Sherlock. He angled his face to present a good target. “Go for it.”

“Oh, for God's sake,” said John. “I'm not going to hit you again just because you think it's going to help.”

“Would it help?” asked Sherlock. “Do you feel better for it?”

John made a noise of pure frustration, glancing around at the people streaming past them to go into the tube station. “I don't have the faintest idea how I feel,” he said. “I tried to tell you that the other night. It's all so confused. I hate you, and I'm relieved you're alive, and I'm furious, and I've missed you so much-” his voice cracked on that last one, and he shut his eyes and took a deep breath. “I don't know what to feel, Sherlock. I just want to go home and have a cup of tea.” He glanced at the entrance to the tube, putting his hands in his pockets to feel for his Oyster card.

“No,” said Sherlock, grabbing his sleeve. “No, wait, don't- if you go home and lock it all away again, John, you'll never sort through it. We'll never get back to where we were.”

“Maybe I don't want to get back there,” snapped John. “Back to when I was just one of your idiot fanboys,” he waved his arm vaguely in the direction of Lewis, “ready to believe you could do anything, following you around like a bloody dog. And look where it got me – you spent all your time taking advantage of me. You tried to drug me and then terrified the shit out of me at Baskerville, you made me think you were dead-” He broke off, shut his eyes, and took in a very long breath through his nose.

“That's true,” allowed Sherlock. “But we also stole an ashtray from Buckingham Palace, had a fight dressed as ninjas, broke into a top secret military base, and drank endless cups of tea together.”

John raised an eyebrow. “You realise that, apart from the tea, all those things are illegal?”

Sherlock waved that away. “Not the point. I am trying to say that we were friends, and we had fun. We both had fun – you enjoyed it as much as I did. There's no need to throw it away like this.”

“I'm not,” said John through a clenched jaw. “You did.”

“Because I had no choice!” snapped back Sherlock. “You know that – you said so the other night. Would you really have preferred to have been shot?”

“I'd have preferred to have been involved in it,” returned John. “You cut me out of the whole thing, Sherlock! Treated me like a child who couldn't be trusted with the whole story – how do you think that makes me feel? Three years of not knowing just because you have to be so bloody mysterious all the time!”

Good, excellent, more anger. Sherlock just had to work out what to do with it now he'd got it. “That wasn't why, John, you know that as well,” he said. “I wanted to be able to tell you, but I couldn't risk it.”

“Right, of course,” said John. It was the tone of voice he used when he didn't know why he was bothering, when he was about to walk away. Sherlock couldn't allow that.

“I did, John. Of course I did. I hated it – I can't count the number of times I wanted nothing more than to be able to talk through my thoughts to you, knowing you'd somehow manage to say the one thing that would make the solution obvious, or have someone I could thoroughly rely on, without having to put contingencies in place in case of betrayal.” He searched his mind, remembering all those lonely days and nights, and how much he had missed having John with him. How much he still missed him, and would continue to do so if he couldn't somehow solve this.

The look on John's face was still blank, but for the first time since Sherlock had come back, he thought he could detect a crack in it, a softening in his eyes that made hope surge in Sherlock's chest. He took a deep breath, and decided to try letting out the deepest truth he could. 

“And the tea, of course. I think I missed drinking tea with you most of all.”

John's face slackened, and he let out a tiny, hitched sigh. “Sherlock,” he said quietly, then shook his head and shut his eyes. Sherlock stayed precisely as he was, something caught in his throat.

A moment passed, then John opened his eyes and straightened up, looking at Sherlock with a determined expression. “Right then,” he said. “Let's go home and have some tea.”

Sherlock blinked, and then felt his face ease into the kind of beaming smile that he'd had so little experience of before he'd met John, and which had been far too absent in the last three years. “Really?” he asked.

John shrugged one shoulder, but Sherlock could see part of him responding to Sherlock's smile, his face beginning to crease in familiar lines. “I suppose it's worth at least trying to sort this out,” he said. “You're right that the current situation can't continue.” He paused, and then his mouth did that amused quirk that meant he was going to say something that most people wouldn't approve of. “I might still take you up on that offer to punch you again, though.”

“When you like and where you like,” said Sherlock. “My face is at your disposal.”

John actually laughed at that. It was more than a little ragged, but it made Sherlock's heart lift. He wasn't stupid enough to think that it had all been solved so easily, but this was a start. If both he and John were working on this, then somehow they'd work it out. Maybe neither of them had the best track record when it came to sorting out emotions, but they did have an excellent record when it came to solving things together.


End file.
